November bird of the month: Crested Shrike-tit

5 things about Crested Shrike-tits

Here’s five things you may or may not know about your November Bird of the Month, the Crested Shrike-tit!

1. Hiding in plain sight

With its bold black-and-white striped face and a bright yellow front, combined with its outlandish Mohawk hairstyle, the Crested Shrike-tit is anything but an inconspicuous LBJ (little brown job). Nevertheless, despite its bright colouration, Crested Shrike-tits are often difficult to spot when they’re foraging among the foliage of trees.

2. Seldom seen but often heard

Crested Shrike-tits often call from the treetops, usually giving a mournful piping whistle, but they are detected more often while they’re in the canopy by the sounds of the birds shredding bark from the upper branches.

3. What’s for lunch?

Insects and their larvae are the main food of Crested Shrike-tits, which use their strong, stout beak to vigorously tear the bark away from branches, especially in eucalypts, to uncover these titbits as they try to hide.

4. The best nest

The nest of the Crested Shrike-tit is an inverted cone woven from grass and strips of bark, all bound together with spider webs that cover the outer surface, and sometimes it is decorated with bits of moss or lichen; inside, the nest is lined with fine strips of bark and dry grasses. Two or three eggs are laid, which are incubated by both sexes; sometimes, when the birds are due to change over incubation duties, the sitting bird is reluctant to leave, and needs to be nudged aside!

5. Australia all over (nearly)

There are three subspecies of Crested Shrike-tits across mainland Australia, though they are absent from Tasmania. They occur in eastern and south-eastern Australia; south-western WA; and in the Top End and adjacent areas of the Kimberley in northern Western Australia. The northern subspecies of the Crested Shrike-tit is classified as Vulnerable.